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Published Nov 25, 2025 • 3 minute read
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Minnesota Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt makes a save on Winnipeg Jets’ Gustav Nyquist. Fred Greenslade/The Canadian PressArticle content
Ask Gustav Nyquist if anything has surprised him about Winnipeg and the first-year Jet goes culinary.
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“The restaurant scene,” Nyquist said, Tuesday. “It’s very good. Much better than I thought it would be.”
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He could have said the same thing about the weather, specifically the lack of a single snowflake just a month out from Christmas.
“I don’t think I know what I’m in for, yet,” the 36-year-old Swede said.
If only the end of his goal-scoring drought was as predictable.
Nyquist goes into Wednesday’s tilt in Washington still looking for his first of the season, his 16-game famine the longest season-opening dry spell of his NHL career.
Fourteen years and six teams into it, the lack of finish probably wouldn’t bother him like it would have, say, 10 years ago, if it weren’t for the circumstance.
“You want to score that first goal and get it out of the way, especially with a new team,” Nyquist said. “You’ve just got to try your hardest to not be frustrated. And it’s easier to say than do. It just doesn’t help to be frustrated.”
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He’s learned that over the years, when 10- or 11-game droughts would come and go.
Last season provided a similar test, maybe even a tougher one than his current one: he took a 10-game drought from Nashville to Minnesota and went another another 15 games after the trade to the Wild.
He ended the year with just 11 goals, the least productive of his career, given the 79 games he played.
The Jets hoped that was a mirage, putting their free-agent stock in the guy who popped 23 and a career-high 75 points a year earlier.
Not rewarding that faith is what can drive players nuts.
“He’s not frustrated and breaking sticks and going crazy,” head coach Scott Arniel said.
Maybe not. But there’s always something bubbling under the surface when these slumps reach a certain point.
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We’ve heard the squeezing-the-stick analogy, but this is probably more mental than physical.
“I wouldn’t put a number of games on it,” Nyquist said. “It’s hard to describe, hard to put into words. Sometimes when you’re hot the puck just keeps finding you in good spots, the puck squirts out on the backside for an easy goal. And when it’s going hard, it’s going hard.”
Seems it’s feast or famine, for some.
“I’ve been through it,” teammate Morgan Barron added, recalling how last year around this time he finally scored his first non-empty-netter of the season. “Sometimes it feels like you’re putting pucks on net and nothing’s going in. It’s funny, it always seems to come in ebbs and flows. I have no doubt that once he gets one, the floodgates will open for him.”
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Nyquist isn’t worried about floodgates opening. A simple crack in the gate would be fine.
“I’m starting to play a lot better here, as of late,” he said. “Hopefully it’ll come here soon and get the gates open a little bit. Everyone’s going to go through it if you play long enough. It does help, having been through it. I look at clips and I see the chances the last couple, three games, chances that could have gone home.
“Just keep doing those and one will pop.”
Arniel says there have been things to like about Nyquist’s game, patience with the puck being one of them.
Acknowledging he’s a passer first, he’d like to see him get inside a little more – and shoot.
“He is getting some looks and I’d like to see him try to bury those,” the coach said.
A lineup often in flux, not to mention an injury that cost Nyquist five games, hasn’t helped.
He’s pegged to start Wednesday’s game on a line with Barron and Jonathan Toews.
Maybe the weather provided a good omen as the Jets left home: the forecast called for a chance of snow.
When it comes to this new Winnipegger, maybe we, too, still don’t know what we’re in for.
paul.friesen@kleinmedia.ca
X: @friesensunmedia
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